RE: [Usability] Passive dialogs/messages

["Erik Pukinskis" <erikthelephant hotmail com>]

> The status bar is the prime candidate, 

One problem with the status bar is that changes in the status bar text
are not too noticeable.  The status bar is constantly changing in
Mozilla, but I rarely pay attention to it.

But I agree that this is a big need.  Windows XP is starting to use the
system tray for this type of thing.  One of the best features of Windows
Messenger/MSN Explorer is that when an email comes, a little
notification slides up from the system tray (ooh, I just received new
mail from Seth Nickel!) and then slides back down after a few seconds.
Windows XP also notifies me about updates to the OS that it downloaded
and various other facts that I might be interested in, but may well want
to ignore.

I'd propose that there be some sort of notification panel applet, that
applications can call and have a message slide up discretely.

I've noticed when watching people use things like MS Office that they
feel compelled to address everything that the computer tells them.  If
Clippy says "do you want to..." they click "No" instead of just ignoring
it.  So whatever solution we choose should make it really obvious that
"you can ignore this if you want to" if we want to save anyone any time.

-Erik